by Amy Cross
Staring at her, I realize there's no point continuing this conversation. She doesn't understand, and I'm not sure she ever will.
“I have to go,” I mutter, stepping past her before she grabs my arm again. “Leanne,” I sigh, turning to her, “please -”
“Don't hate me!” she sobs, putting her arms around me and pulling me tight for a hug. “Please, Emilia, I didn't mean to hurt you, I just make a mistake!”
“I know,” I reply, feeling a little awkward, “but -”
“Why don't you come to the party on Saturday?” she sniffs, holding me even tighter, as if she never wants to let me go. “It'll be fun, I swear! We can hang out with other people and just chill, and things can get a little less intense between us, and I swear no-one'll make fun of you because of your belly. They'll probably think it's cool if you show them.”
“Like some kind of circus freak?” I whisper, feeling a fresh wave of anger rising through my body.
“Like someone with a cool trick,” she replies.
Feeling her tears soaking through the shoulder of my shirt, I resist the urge to push her away even though I'm worried I'll snap at any moment. I never had her pegged as such a pathetic fool, or as someone who so desperately craved the approval of a bunch of mediocre party girls, and I'm starting to think that this new side of Leanne is going to cause a real problem. Even as she continues to sob with her arms around me, I feel a cold sense of disgust and I realize that I just want to get away from her before she pushes me to do anything stupid. I swear, if she says one more dumb thing...
“So,” she whispers finally, “are we friends again?”
I flinch. Does she think it's that easy?
“You should come to the party,” she continues. “It's gonna be so much fun.”
I flinch again, feeling a burst of anger that this time seems to be concentrated in my belly. The mass is twisting again, churning as if it too is disgusted by Leanne's pathetic excuses.
“You'll probably be way more popular than me,” she adds. “With that thing, you'll have something to talk about all night.”
“Please shut up,” I whisper, as blind fury continues to build in my gut.
“I mean it,” she continues, hugging me tighter still. “I bet everyone'll want to touch it.”
“Leanne -”
The anger seems to shift, and I feel something moving deep in my belly. Uncurling, almost...
“Leanne,” I whisper again, “I think -”
Suddenly there's a bursting sensation in my belly, and Leanne lets out a gasp of pain as I feel something reaching out through the slit. All the anger and fury seems to ripple through my body for a few seconds as Leanne holds me tight, but instead of tears on my shoulder, now I can feel something hotter and fuller running out of her mouth and all the way down my arm. Reaching around, I hold her waist and feel her body shaking with a series of heavy jerks and spasms, and a moment later I realize her pained voice is trying to whisper something. I want to look down at our bellies, to see what's really happening, but I'm afraid about what I might find so I simply wait. A moment later, I realize I can feel part of my body inside hers, as if some new strength is reaching into her belly and churning through her flesh. I want to deny it all, to persuade myself that I'm imagining the whole thing, but finally I feel her body fall limp and I have to hold her up, even as more blood flows not only from her mouth but also from her torso.
I feel something wriggling in the slit, as if it's retracting back into my body.
“Leanne?” I whisper, with tears in my eyes as I wait in vain for her to move. “Leanne, can you hear me?”
Still holding her limp body in my arms, I wait in vain for her to reply. All around us, the forest is completely silent. Finally I force myself to let her fall away just a little, and when I look down I see that her belly, chest and crotch have been completely ripped apart. Blood is dribbling from her wounds, spattering onto the dead leaves beneath our feet.
Jonathan
Today
“Feel it!” Emilia screams, ripping the rusty hooks into my chest and digging them deep between my ribs. “Feel the pain! Feel the anger! Feel all the hatred burning through your soul!”
Crying out, I hear the sound of my ribs being cracked open, followed by the sound of my blood spattering down onto the concrete below. I should be dead now, and I'd welcome the chance to slip into pain-free darkness, but Emilia is already tilting my head up. I have my eyes squeezed shut, but I can feel her hot, angry breath against my face. No matter how come I close to fading away, she always manages to drag me back.
“Hate me!” she hisses.
Opening my blood-filled eyes, I see her leaning closer.
“Hate me!” she shouts again, as if she's losing control. “Come on, you're a vampire! You're supposed to look at me and feel nothing but disgust! I'm a spider, my species is your greatest enemy! I refuse to believe that you can't feel all that hatred and fury burning in the depths of your soul, waiting to burst into your mind!” She leans even closer, until her forehead is pressed against mine and her eyes are just inches away. “You feel it, don't you?” She twists the hook in my chest before ripping it out and slicing it into my waist.
The pain is too great for me to scream. I open my mouth, but my whole body tenses and starts trembling.
“The path to your true self is through hatred,” she continues, tilting her head slightly, “and I will lead you along that path until you can deny the truth no longer!”
“Please -”
Before I can get another word out, she rips the hook from my body and then tosses it aside, before hurrying to a nearby table and picking up the cloth bag she brought into the room a moment earlier. As she brings the bag closer, I can see that it contains something heavy. Another torture device, perhaps, or more so-called evidence of her claims.
“You spent so long repressing your true nature,” she says breathlessly, with my blood all over her face and arms, “you don't even know how to get to it, do you? Well...” She opens the bag and looks down at the contents. “The people who raised you, your adoptive parents... Tell me, did you love them?”
“With...” I can barely speak. “With all my heart. They were good to me.”
“You had a happy family?”
“I was truly blessed,” I whisper.
She continues to stare down into the bag for a moment. “You used to go to their house for dinner every Sunday, didn't you? Even now as an adult, living in the city, you used to drive to their place every weekend.”
“Of course.”
“Why?” she asks.
“Why?” I pause, finally realizing that she truly doesn't understand. “Because I love them. Because they love me. Because we're family, and that's what families do.” I wait for her to reply. “Please, you have to let me go. I went to dinner with them this past Sunday, and I... I want to go again. I want more Sundays like that. I'm a simple man with a simple life, and I want to go back to it all.”
“They loved you,” she whispers. “They took care of you.”
“They're good people.”
“What's that like?” she asks, before shaking her head. “Never mind. I don't need to know.”
“I belong with them,” I stammer.
“You don't belong anywhere!”
“You don't know what you're talking about,” I tell her. “I belong in their world, not yours.”
“Such a shame, then,” she replies, “that their reward was so brutal.” Turning the bag around, she tips out two human heads that crack as they hit the ground and roll toward me. “If you're in any doubt, I can promise you that they died in agony, screaming my name.”
Staring down in horror, I see my parents' heads staring up at me. My father's eyes are wide open in shock, while my mother's are closed, almost as if she's sleeping. They both have thick gashes around the necks, where they were cut from the rest of their bodies.
“No!” I say firmly, feeling a wave of sorrow rising through my chest. “Th
ose aren't real! Those are -”
Before I can finish, she steps forward and crushes my mother's head with the heel of her boot, cracking the skull and then smearing brain matter across the concrete.
“These two human fools took you in,” she sneers, stepping closer. “They adopted you, they raised you well, and their reward was a horrific death. I was going to bring them here and slaughter them in front of you, but they squealed too much after I broke into their home last night. Typical humans. Still...” She drops the cloth bag and takes another glass vial from her pocket. “They contributed something else to the cause.”
Staring at the heads, I feel as if my mind is about to fracture. I keep telling myself that this isn't possible, that the world can't be so cruel, but the evidence is right in front of me.
“Their blood,” Emilia continues, kicking the heads away as she pours blood onto the palm of her hand from the vial. “I thought my venom would cause enough pain for you to find your true nature, but then I realized that there's something else you need to feel, so I collected blood from their miserable corpses and I mixed it together.” She tilts my head back and pours some of the blood into my mouth, despite my desperate efforts to stop her. “You need to feel hunger!” she hisses. “You need to feel the yearning desire that you've been repressing for all these years!”
As she tips the rest of the vial into my mouth, I splutter and try to spit it out, but I'm unable to keep most of the blood from trickling down the back of my throat. At first I'm sickened, but after a moment I feel something different in my chest, a kind of vitality. I want to deny it all, to scream that this isn't working, but with each passing second the sense of strength is increasing and finally I realize the horrific truth.
I want more.
I want all the blood I can drink.
“You feel it now,” she whispers, tossing the vial aside, “don't you?”
I let out a faint gasp as the sense of strength continues to build.
“That was just a taster,” she continues, “but I'm sure it's enough to whet your appetite. You're going to want more, you're going to need more now that the floodgates are open.” She leans closer to my ear. “I told you I'd find a way to awaken the vampire in your soul, and I think I just succeeded, didn't I? When you have something hiding in your soul, in your body, you can't hold it back. You can try, but eventually it'll come bursting out and there's nothing you can do to stop it. It's you, it's the real you, and eventually you'll learn to be stronger than you can possibly imagine.”
Closing my eyes, I try to resist, but the sensation of hunger is too strong. All I can think about is blood, and the need to get more. I can even smell blood all around me, not only in the two heads on the floor but also coursing through Emilia's veins, pulsing with every beat of her heart. When I open my eyes, I realize that I'm seeing her differently, and that the whole world seems to have come alive with the promise of fresh, warm blood.
“You feel it,” she says with a smile, as tears fill her eyes. “That's good. Now give in to the rest.”
“No,” I whisper.
“Be your real self,” she continues. “Let it -”
Suddenly I lunge at her, trying to bite down into her neck, only for her to take a step back. Tugging on the ropes around my wrists, I try desperately to break free. After a moment, I see that Emilia is staring at me with an expression of shock, and then slowly her smile returns.
“Now that,” she says finally, “is what I was waiting for. Welcome to the other side.”
Emilia
Ten years ago
“Don't look back,” Doctor Keller hisses as he loads my bag into the boot of his car. “Emilia, if you look back it's a sign of weakness. Those people are nothing to you now. They were part of your old life, you must either forget them or...”
I wait for him to finish.
“Or what?” I ask, my voice trembling with fear.
“Or they must die,” he says firmly. “Is that what you'd prefer?”
I pause, before shaking my head.
“Really?” he asks. “You disappoint me a little. I would have thought you might feel more disgust for their species. It's only natural, you know. Humans are weak and pathetic, you should look down upon them.”
“I...” Taking a deep breath, I realize that although I do hate the Vaughns, there's still a part of me that feels sorry for them. They obviously tried to be good foster parents, and it's not their fault that, as humans, they simply weren't up to the task.
“Be strong,” Keller continues. “Don't mourn for your old life. That would be a backward step in your development.”
I know he's right, but as I make my way around to the passenger-side door, I can't help but feel very much aware of Elizabeth and Peter watching me from the house. When I told them I was leaving, I was filled with a sense that I had to get as far away from this crumby little town as possible, but now I'm surprised to find that a part of me is actually going to miss them. I stop for a moment with tears in my eyes, tempted to ask Doctor Keller whether I really, truly have to leave.
No.
I can't do that.
I trust him Doctor Keller with my life. He knows me better than I know myself, and I simply have to accept that he's right. Resisting the urge to turn and look back toward the house, I open the car door.
“Emilia!”
I flinch as soon as I hear Peter's voice, and as I hear footsteps hurrying toward me. Turning, I see that he's holding one of my drawing pads.
“You left this,” he says cautiously, with a hint of fear in his voice, almost as if he's scared to come too close. I swear, his hand is actually shaking, as if...
He is scared of me. That feels good.
“Thanks,” I reply, taking the book and then looking past him to see Elizabeth standing in the doorway. “She thinks I killed Leanne, doesn't she?”
“The police report said Leanne was most likely attacked by a wild -”
“I know that!” I snap. “She doesn't believe it, though, does she?” I wait for an answer, but his silence tells me all I need to know. “You don't believe it either,” I continue. “You both think I'm the one who killed her and tore her guts out and -”
“Emilia -”
“Well, I did!” I continue, maintaining firm eye contact with him. “You never asked me directly, either of you, so I never needed to tell you before, but I killed Leanne and I did all those awful things to her body, and I'd do them again if I got the chance! So you should be glad I'm leaving, you should be very glad, because I'm a monster and if I stayed, you wouldn't be safe. I'd probably end up doing exactly the same thing to you.” I pause for a moment, feeling a rush of relief now that I've told him the truth, even if I suspect deep down that he'll struggle to truly believe every word. “You suspected I was like this from the start, didn't you?” I ask. “Both of you, when you saw my belly and -”
“Emilia,” Doctor Keller says suddenly, “we have to go now. These people are not worth your time.”
“You knew!” I hiss at Peter, feeling a familiar churning sensation in my gut, as if what happened with Leanne might be about to happen again. “You can deny it all you want, but you sensed that something was wrong with me. I guess I should just be grateful you didn't take me to the lake and drown me.”
“Emilia,” Peter replies, “please -”
“You're nothing!” I snarl, as I feel the slit in my belly starting to open and the black mass begins to poke its way out again. “You're just -”
“Emilia,” Doctor Keller says suddenly, putting a hand on my shoulder. “It's time to go.”
I pause, as I feel the mass slipping back into the depths of my belly. Another second, and Peter would have met the same fate as Leanne.
“Come,” Doctor Keller continues. “There's nothing for you here, not anymore. Don't even bother being angry with these people, they're beneath you.”
Peter pauses, before taking a step back and rubbing his left arm as if he's in pain. “Have a good trip,
” he says, apparently keen to pretend that everything is okay. “Call us and let us know how you're getting on, or send an email or something. I'm sure Doctor Keller will take good care of you.”
“Of course he will,” I reply calmly. “He knows what I am. Even I don't quite know that yet.”
With nothing else to say, I climb into the car and pull the door shut. I can tell that Peter is still standing nearby, as if he somehow thinks there are matters left unresolved between us. The truth, however, is that I never truly belonged here, and now I see that my time with the Vaughn family was simply a way for me to be placed in a holding pattern while something churned and grew deep within my soul. Turning to Doctor Keller as he starts the car, I stare for a moment at the thick lines and wrinkles that crease his face, and I realize that it's from him that I will finally learn the truth about my identity.
“I'm not human, am I?” I ask.
“No,” he replies as he puts his foot on the gas pedal, “you're not. As for what you are, Emilia... I think it's time for you to learn the secret history of your race.”
***
Several hours later, hunched over a book in Keller's apartment, I find myself reading about a great species that once stood proud and tall above all others. Even though the claims made in the Book of Karakh seem preposterous and unreal, deep down I know that they're all true; not only because Keller has told me so, but also because they match my dreams and rhyme with my own feelings. It's as if I have always vibrated at a different frequency to the humans around me, and now I have found others who match me.
I'm not alone.
“At the dawn of recorded history,” I read aloud from the book, my voice trembling with anticipation, “three species were the first to lift their faces from the mud. Greatest of these were the spiders, who built their magnificent palace at Karakh as a monument to wisdom and knowledge, and who tried to educate and support the vampires and the werewolves. For thousands of years, spider society advanced and was held as a beacon for all other species, showing them what could be achieved. All spiders...” I pause, with tears in my eyes as I read the next part. “All spiders are joined together as a part of the great empire. No spider shall ever turn on another spider, and all shall work for the common good not only of our species, but of all life.”
